Orly Masked Ceremony and What's The Password?

Xmas and Halloween seem to blur into each other in stores now, don't they?  On one level, I feel bad for Halloween being overshadowed...but then my xmas has a heavy dose of Halloween to it, so I get plenty of decorating ideas for both when they're squished in next to each other.  I love when polish collections blur that line too.  Wet n Wild's Pick Your Poison collection (back at Walgreens this year!) is Halloween with a heavy dose of xmas, but Orly's new Secret Society collection goes the other way.  It's an xmas collection with only the slightest hint of green.  Weird, right?  My two picks feel completely right right now, but will also be perfect for xmas or New Year's.


What's The Password? is an orange and gold foil.

Describing the finish is a really tough call here.  I'm torn between calling it a foil or a fleck shimmer.  It's dense with gold flecks, but there's something very metallic about it, and for me that tips the balance to foil.  The formula's decent, but a bit sheer.  This is three coats, but two should be enough for shorter nails.  The metallic look is strongest in direct sun, but never fully fades.

I have to say, it's way more orange on me than I was expecting.  It looks fairly coppery in the bottle, but is unquestionably orange once I get it on my nails.  It kinda reminds me of both China Glaze Harvest Moon (down at the bottom) and Sally Hansen Hot Lava, but isn't anywhere near a dupe of either.  It's warmer, brighter, and more orange than Harvest Moon and deeper and denser than Hot Lava.  I'm not sure how I feel about it, though it is stunning.  Orange doesn't generally do it for me.  Zeus is nuts for it and I'm not sure if I'll wind up buying him a bottle or giving him this one.  Something weird happened and I wound up having to reswatch.  I have no clue why, but when I applied my usual NYC Grand Central Station one nail wrinkled like crazy.  I've never had anything remotely like that happen with this 'top coat' (it's really just a clear polish, but works well as a top coa) before and it only happened on that one nail.  Completely ruined it.  So weird!

Masked Ceremony has a mix of tiny silver microglitter, very small fuchsia hexagons, and medium silver hexagonal glitter in a black base.

I love what Orly was going for on Masked Ceremony, but I'm not completely sure they got there.  In the bottle it's fascinating, but the opacity of the base hides a lot of the glitter.  The real trouble is that it's still too sheer for my tastes and I wound up needing a third coat.  My major beef is that it needs more squares!  They're the best part, but they mire down into the base so easily. It's a little sad watching them get obscured by the next coat. There are more than just four on there, I swear!

I'm not entirely complaining.  I do really REALLY like it.  I also know that it's a hard balance to strike between sheer enough to show the glitter and opaque enough to wear on it's own.  It does both just ok instead of doing one really well.  I mattified it too.  Zeus loved it this way, but this is one I prefer glossy.

Bottom line: Masked Ceremony is both a bit too sheer and yet not sheer enough...but it's a compromise and the result is still awesome.  I'm not sure if What's The Password? is too orange for me, but I think it's gorgeous even if it's not very "me".  Both are striking and unusual.  The whole collection is a surprising departure from the xmas standard.  These are the two that really struck me, but the whole collection is worth checking out.

So...make up my mind for me?  Is it too orange to warm an orange-hater's heart or does the finish shine enough that the color doesn't matter as much?